By: John Hulsman

Dr John C. Hulsman is senior columnist at City A.M., a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and president of John C. Hulsman Enterprises. He can be reached for corporate speaking and private briefings at www.chartwellspeakers.com.

The biggest loser in the US election: The idea of the loyal opposition

November 16, 2020

Edward R. Murrow, the greatest of all American newsmen, got it exactly right about the essence of the miracle of American political stability: “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.” Before our very eyes, the aftermath of the election of 2020 [...]
In tearing up America’s democratic norms, Donald Trump leaves behind a poisonous legacy

November 15, 2020

As I write this, with the states of Nevada, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and North Carolina circling around him, the first term of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States is about to come to a shattering end. Notice that I said first term. For there is little doubt that the Republican Party remains [...]
The curse of the Mail-In Vote: How this contested US election became a horror show

November 4, 2020

For a number of months now, good political risk man that I am, I have worried aloud in these pages with increasing dread about the 2020 US presidential election. There are times when you hate being right about making correct political risk calls. The Iraq War debacle was surely such an occasion for me. Sadly, [...]
Biden and his interventionists should beware: America has changed due to the Iraq effect

November 2, 2020

It is not too much to say that my early and fervent opposition to the Iraq War was the seminal professional and ethical moment of my life. I will never forget it. As it turns out, neither will the American people. Despite what it cost me, I was against the war for myriad reasons. It [...]
Why I’m calling the US election for Biden and the Democrats

October 27, 2020

Given the absolute lunacy of this past year, the American presidential campaign of 2020 has followed a strikingly consistent pattern. Since the coming of the virus in the spring, Democratic challenger Joe Biden has held a clear (if not quite overwhelming) lead over the incumbent Donald Trump. Last Thursday’s Real Clear Politics aggregator of polls [...]
The world’s great power rivals must not underestimate American blundering

October 26, 2020

I love the peerless movie Casablanca beyond all others for its wit, intelligence, charm. I love it for its beating heart of romanticism, all lying just under the strata of the most delightful cynicism imaginable. But most of all I love it for its politics. A perfect geopolitical allegory of the early 1940s, it finds [...]
Almost unnoticed, Europe hurtles into decline

October 12, 2020

The string is almost played out. Despite a generation of frantically trying to change the subject — be it by focusing on their own arcane (and very boring) institutional struggles, the problems of other countries (usually the US), or fatuously announcing that every obvious setback is merely a chance to move “the project” of European [...]
The first presidential debate portends the coming train wreck for American democracy

October 5, 2020

The great playwright, George Bernard Shaw, perfectly summed up the dynamic underlying the shambolic first US presidential debate: “Never wrestle with pigs. You both get muddy but the pig likes it.” Instead, the just-concluded first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden — surely the ugliest in the nation’s history — saw both its [...]
The Supreme Court fight is a policy revolution, lying on top of surprising US political stability

September 28, 2020

On its face, the events surrounding the 2020 American election seem too far-fetched even for the most preposterous Netflix series. We have had a pandemic of biblical proportions, riots in the streets, two fascinating (if deeply-flawed) protagonists, and a polarised, volatile electorate lurching from the populist left to the populist right, and no doubt back [...]
Japan’s Yoshihide Suga: New Prime Minister, same old problems

September 21, 2020

All my life I have been fascinated by island kingdoms with honour cultures off large, unknowable continents. For in both the UK and Japan, things are rarely as they seem, and subtext is all. For example, the key to understanding modern Japanese politics is to know that the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is not [...]

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